Sebastian jumped to his feet and looked wildly about him. The sun was low, perhaps another two hours to nightfall. If only we can hold them off until then. ‘Mohammed. Get the gun-boys up into the stern,’ he snapped, and Mohammed, recognizing the new crispness in his voice, turned on the mob about him to relay the order.
The ten gun-boys scattered to gather their weapons and then crowded up on to the poop. Sebastian followed them, gazing anxiously back along the channel. He could see two thousand yards to the bend behind them and the channel was empty, but he was sure the sound of the steam engine was louder.
‘Spread them along the rail,’ he ordered Mohammed. He was thinking hard now; always a difficult task for Sebastian. Stubborn as a mule, his mind began to sulk as soon as he flogged it. He wrinkled his high scholar’s forehead and his next thought emerged slowly. ‘A barricade,’ he said. The thin planking of the bulwark would offer little protection against the high-powered Mousers. ‘Mohammed, get the others to carry up everything they can find, and pile it here to shield the steersmen and the gun-boys. Bring everything – water barrels, the sacks of coconuts, those old fishing-nets.’
While they hurried to obey the order, Sebastian stood in frowning concentration, prodding the mass within his skull and finding it as responsive as a lump of freshly kneaded dough. He tried to estimate the relative speeds of the dhow and a modern steam launch. Perhaps they were moving at half the speed of their pursuers. With a sliding sensation, he decided that even in this wind, sail could not hope to outrun a propeller-driven craft.
The word propeller, and the chance that at that moment he was forced to move aside to allow four of the men to drag an untidy bundle of old fishing-nets past, eased the next idea to the surface of his mind.
Humbled by the brilliance of his idea, he clung to it desperately, lest it somehow sink once more below the surface to be lost. ‘Mohammed …’ he stammered in his excitement. ‘Mohammed, those nets …’ He looked back again along the wide channel, and saw it still empty. He looked ahead and saw the next bend coming towards them; already the helmsman was chanting the orders preparatory to tacking the dhow. ‘Those nets. I want to lay them across the channel.’
Mohammed stared at him aghast, his wizened face crinkling deeper in disbelief.
‘Cut off the corks. Leave every fourth one.’ Sebastian grabbed his shoulders and shook him in agitation. ‘I want the net to sag. I don’t want them to spot it too soon.’
They were almost up to the bend now, and Sebastian pointed ahead. ‘We’ll lay it just around the corner.’
‘Why, master?’ pleaded Mohammed. ‘We must run. They are close now.’
‘The propeller,’ Sebastian shouted in his face. He made a churning motion with his hands. ‘I want to snag the propeller.’
A moment longer Mohammed stared at him, then he began to grin, exposing his bald gums.
While they worked in frantic haste the muffled engine beat from upstream grew steadily louder, more insistent.
The dhow wallowed and balked at the efforts of the helmsman to work her across the channel. Her head kept falling away before the wind, threatening to snarl the net in her own rudder, but slowly the line of bobbing corks spread from the mangroves on one side towards the far bank, while in grim concentration Sebastian and a group led by Mohammed paid the net out over the stern. Every few minutes they lifted their faces to glance at the bend upstream, expecting to see the German launch appear and hear the crackle of Mauser fire.
Gradually the dhow edged in towards the north bank, sowing the row of corks behind her, and abruptly Sebastian realized that the net was too short – too short by fifty yards. There would be a gap in their defence. If the launch cut the bend fine, hugging the bank as it came, then they were lost. Already the note of its engine was so close that he could hear the metallic whine of the drive shaft.
Now also there was a new problem. How to anchor the loose end of the net? To let it float free would allow the current to wash it away, and open the gap still further.
‘Mohammed. Fetch one of the tusks. The biggest one you can find. Quickly. Go quickly.’
Mohammed scampered away and returned immediately, the two bearers with him staggering under the weight of the long curved shaft of ivory.
His hands clumsy with haste, Sebastian lashed the end rope of the net to the tusk. Then grunting with the effort, he and Mohammed hoisted it to the side rail, and pushed it overboard. As it splashed, Sebastian shouted at the helmsman, ‘Go!’ and pointed downstream. Thankfully the Arab wrenched the tiller across. The dhow spun on her heel and pointed once more towards the sea.
Silently, anxiously, Sebastian and his gun-boys lined the stern and gazed back at the bend of the channel. In the fists of each of them were clutched the short-barrelled elephant rifles, and their faces were set intently.
The chug of the steam engine rose louder and still louder.
‘Shout as soon as it shows,’ Sebastian ordered. ‘Shoot as fast as you can. Keep them looking at us, so they don’t see the net.’
And the launch came around the bend; flying a ribbon of grey smoke from its single stack and the bold red, yellow and black flag of the Empire at its bows. A neat little craft, forty-footer, low in the waist, small deckhouse aft, gleaming white in the sunlight, and the white moustache of the bow wave curled about her bows.
‘Shoot!’ bellowed Sebastian as he saw the Askari clustered on the foredeck. ‘Shoot!’ and his voice was lost in the concerted blast of the heavy-calibre rifles around him. One of the Askari was flung backwards against the deckhouse, his arms spread wide as he hung there a moment in the attitude of crucifixion before subsiding gently on to the deck. His comrades scattered and dropped into cover behind the steel bulwark. A single figure was left alone on the deck; a massive figure in the light grey uniform of the German colonial service, with his wide-brimmed slouch hat, and gold gleaming at the shoulders of his tunic.
Sebastian took him in the notch of his rear sight, held the bead on his chest, and jerked the trigger. The rifle jumped joyously against his shoulder, and he saw a fountain of spray leap from the surface of the river a hundred yards beyond the launch. Sebastian fired again, closing his eyes in anticipation of the savage recoil of the rifle. When he opened them, the German officer was still on his feet, shooting back at Sebastian with a pistol in his outstretched right hand. He was making better practice than Sebastian. The fluting hum of his fire whipped about Sebastian’s head, or smacked into the planking of the dhow.
Hastily Sebastian ducked behind the water barrel and clawed a pair of cartridges from his belt. Sharper, higher than the dull booming of the elephant rifles, climbed the brittle crackle of the Mauser fire as the Askari joined in.
Cautiously Sebastian lifted his eyes above the water barrel. The launch was cutting the bend fine, and with a sudden swoop of dismay, he knew it was going to clear the fishnet by twenty feet. He dropped his rifle on to the deck and jumped to his feet. A Mauser bullet missed his ear by so little that it nearly burst his eardrum. Instinctively he ducked, then checked the movement and instead ran to the helmsman. ‘Get out of the way!’ he yelled in his excitement and his fear. Roughly he shoved the man aside and, grasping the tiller, pushed it across. Perilously close to the jibe, the dhow veered across the channel, opening the angle between it and the launch. Looking back Sebastian saw the fat German officer turn and shout an order towards the wheelhouse. Almost immediately the bows of the launch swung, following the dhow’s manoeuvre, and Sebastian felt triumph flare in his chest. Now directly in the path of the launch lay the line of tiny black dots that marked the net.
His deep-drawn breath trapped in his lungs, Sebastian watched the launch sweep over the net. His grip on the tiller tightened until his knuckles threatened to push out through the skin, and then he expelled his breath in a howl of joy and relief.
For the line of corks was suddenly plucked below the surface, leaving the small disturbance of ripples where each had stood. For ten seconds the la
unch sped on, then abruptly the even sound of her passage altered, a harsh clattering intruded, and her bows swung suddenly as she slowed.
The gap between the two craft widened. Sebastian saw the German officer drag a frightened Askari from the wheelhouse and club him unmercifully about the head, but the squeals of Teutonic fury were muted by the swiftly increasing distance, and then drowned by the tumultuous clamour of his own crew, as they pranced and danced about the deck.
The Arab helmsman hopped up on to the water barrel and hoisted the skirts of his dirty grey robe to expose his naked posterior at the launch in calculated mockery.
– 11 –
Long after the dhow had sailed sedately first out of rifle range, and then out of sight, Herman Fleischer gave himself over completely to the epilepsy of frustrated anger. He raved about the tiny deck, lashing out with ham-sized fists while his Askari skittled around him trying to keep out of range. Repeatedly he returned to the unconscious form of his helmsman to kick him as he lay. At last his fury burned itself down to the level where it allowed him to trundle aft and hang over the stern rail peering down at the sodden bundle of netting which was wrapped around the propeller.
‘Sergeant!’ His voice was hoarse with strain. ‘Get two men with knives over the side to cut that away!’
And a stillness fell upon them all. Every man tried to shrink himself down into insignificance, so that the choice might not fall on him. Two volunteers were selected, divested of their uniforms and hustled to the stern, despite their terrified entreaties.
‘Tell them to hurry,’ grunted Herman, and went to his folding chair. His personal boy placed the evening meal with its attendant pitcher of beer on the table before him and Herman fell to.
Once from the stern there was a squeak and a splash, following by a furious burst of rifle fire. Herman frowned and looked up from his plate.
‘A crocodile has taken one of the men,’ his sergeant, reported in agitation.
‘Well, put another one over,’ said Herman and returned with unabated relish to his meal. This last batch of sausage was particularly tasty.
The netting had wound so tightly about the blades and shaft of the propeller, that it was an hour after midnight when the last of it was hacked away by lantern light.
The drive shaft had twisted slightly and run one of its bearings, so even at quarter speed there was a fearsome clattering and threshing sound from the stern as the launch limped slowly down the channel towards the sea.
In the grey and pallid pink of dawn they crept past the last island of mangroves and the launch lifted her head to the sluggish thrust of the Indian Ocean. It was a windless morning of flat calm, and Herman peered without hope into the misty half light that obscured the ocean’s far horizon. He had come this far only on the slight chance that the dhow might have gone aground on a mud bank during her night run down the river.
‘Stop!’ he shouted at his battered helmsman. Immediately the agonized clatter of the propeller ceased, and the launch rose and fell uneasily on the long oily swells.
So they had got clear away then. He could not risk his damaged launch on the open sea. He must go back, and leave the dhow and its ivory and its many candidates for the rope, to head unmolested for that pest-hole of rogues and pirates on Zanzibar Island.
Moodily he looked out across the sea and mourned that cargo of ivory. There had been perhaps a million Reichsmarks of it aboard, of which his unofficial handling fee would have been considerable.
Also he mourned the departure of the Englishman. He had never hanged one before.
He sighed and tried to comfort himself with the thought of that damned American, now well digested in the maw of a crocodile, but truly it would have been more satisfying to see him kick and spin on the rope.
He sighed again. Ah, well! At least he would no longer have the perpetual worry of Flynn O’Flynn’s presence on his border, nor would he have to suffer the nagging of Governor Schee and his endless demands for O’Flynn’s head.
Now it was breakfast time. He was about to turn away when something out there in the lightening dawn caught his attention.
A long low shape, its outline becoming crisper as he watched. There were cries from his Askari as they saw it also, huge in the dawn. The stark square turrets with their slim gun-barrels, the tall triple stacks and the neat geometrical patterns of its rigging.
‘The Blücher!’ roared Herman in savage elation. ‘The Blücher, by God!’ He recognized the cruiser, for he had seen her not six months before, lying in Dar es Salaam harbour. ‘Sergeant, bring the signal pistol!’ He was capering with excitement. In reply to Herman’s hasty message, Governor Schee must have sent the Blücher racing southwards to blockade the Rufiji mouth. ‘Start the engine. Schnell! Run out to her,’ he shouted at the helmsman as he slid one of the fat Verey cartridges into the gaping breech of the pistol, snapped it closed and pointed the muzzle to the sky.
Beside the tall bulk of the cruiser the launch was as tiny as a floating leaf, and Herman looked up with apprehension at the frail rope ladder he was expected to climb. His Askari assisted him across the narrow strip of water between the two vessels and he hung for a desperate minute until his feet found the rungs and he began his ponderous ascent. Sweating profusely he was helped on to the deck by two seamen and faced an honour guard of a dozen or more. Heading them was a young lieutenant in crisp, smart tropical whites.
Herman shrugged off the helping hands, drew himself to attention with a click of heels. ‘Commissioner Fleischer.’ His voice shaky with exertion.
‘Lieutenant Kyller.’ The officer clicked and saluted.
‘I must see your captain immediately. A matter of extreme urgency.’
– 12 –
Kapitän zur See Count Otto von Kleine inclined his head gravely as he greeted Herman. He was a tall, thin man, who wore a neat, pointed blond beard with just a few threads of grey to give it dignity. ‘The English have landed a full-scale expeditionary force in the Rufiji delta, supported by capital ships? This is correct?’ he asked immediately.
‘The report was exaggerated.’ Herman regretted bitterly the impetuous wording of his message to the Governor; he had been fired with patriotic ardour at the time. ‘In fact, it was only … ah,’ he hesitated, ‘one vessel.’
‘Of what strength? What is her armament?’ demanded von Kleine.
‘Well, it was an unarmed vessel.’
And von Kleine frowned. ‘Of what type?’
Herman flushed with embarrassment. ‘An Arab dhow. Of about twenty-two metres.’
‘But this is impossible. Ridiculous. The Kaiser has delivered an ultimatum to the British Consul in Berlin. He has issued mobilization orders to five divisions.’ The captain spun on his heel and began to pace restlessly about his bridge, clapping his hands together in agitation. ‘What was the purpose of this British invasion? Where is this … this dhow? What explanation must I send to Berlin?’
‘I have since learned that the expedition was led by a notorious ivory poacher named O’Flynn. He was shot resisting arrest by my Askari, but his accessory, an unknown Englishman, escaped down the river last night in the dhow.’
‘Where will they be headed?’ The captain stopped pacing and glared at Herman.
‘Zanzibar.’
‘This is stupidity, utter stupidity. We will be a laughing stock! A battle cruiser to catch a pair of common criminals!’
‘But, Captain, you must pursue them.’
To what purpose?’
‘If they escape to tell their story, the dignity of the Emperor will be lowered throughout the length of Africa. Think if the British Press were to hear of this! Also, these men are dangerous criminals.’
‘But I cannot board a foreign ship on the high seas. Especially if she flies the Union Jack. It would be an act of war – an act of piracy.’
‘But, Captain, if she were to sink with all hands, sink without a trace?’
And Captain von Kleine nodded thoughtfully. Then abruptly he
snapped his fingers and turned to his pilot. ‘Plot me a course for Zanzibar Island.’
– 13 –
They lay becalmed below a sky of brazen cobalt, and every hour of the calm allowed the Mozambique current to push the little dhow another three miles off its course. Aimlessly she swung her head to meet each of the long swells, and then let it fall away into the troughs.
For the twentieth time since dawn, Sebastian climbed up on to the poop-deck and surveyed the endless waters, searching for a ruffle on the glassy surface that would herald the wind. But there was never any sign of it. He looked towards the west, but the blue line of the coast had long since sunk below the horizon.
‘I’m an old dog, Fisi,’ bellowed Flynn from the lower deck. ‘Hear me laugh,’ and he imitated faithfully the yammering cry of an hyena. All day Flynn had regaled the company with snatches of song and animal imitations. Yet his delirium was interspaced with periods of lucidity. ‘I reckon this time old Fleischer got me good, Bassie. There’s a sack of poison forming round that bullet. I can feel it there. A fat, hot sack of it. Reckon we’ve got to dig for it pretty soon. Reckon if we can’t make it back to Zanzibar pretty soon, we’re going to have to dig for it.’ Then his mind escaped once more into the hot land of delirium.
‘My little girl, I’ll bring you a pretty ribbon. There, don’t cry. A pretty ribbon for a pretty girl.’ His voice syrupy, then suddenly harsh. ‘You cheeky little bitch. You’re just like that goddamned mother of yours. Don’t know why I don’t chase you out,’ this last followed immediately by the hyena imitation again.
Now Sebastian turned away from the poop rail and looked down on Flynn. Beside him the faithful Mohammed was dipping strips of cloth in a bucket of sea water, wringing them out and then laying them on Flynn’s flushed forehead in a futile attempt to reduce the fever.
Sebastian sighed. His responsibilities lay heavily. The command of the expedition had devolved squarely upon him. And yet, there was a sneaky sensation of pleasure, of pride in his execution of that command to the present. He went back and replayed in his mind the episode of the fishnet, remembering the quick decision that had altered the launch’s course and lured it into the trap. He smiled at the memory, and the smile was not his usual self-effacing grin, but something harder. When he turned away to pace the narrow deck there was more spring in his step, and he set his shoulders square.